'Witchy' woman: Hingham's Christina Pecce to present cabaret show

By R. Scott Reedy/For The Patriot Ledger

Wednesday

Sep 4, 2019 at 2:57 PM

Christina Pecce, a 2007 graduate of Hingham High, brings her cabaret-style show to Oberon in Cambridge, Sept. 8.

When Hingham singer and actress Christina Pecce asked an industry professional a few years ago what kinds of parts she should set her sights on, she might reasonably have expected to hear “ingénue,” or maybe “young female lead.”

The now 30-year-old heard something a little different, though, and wasted no time putting the advice to good use.

“I had a session with a famous acting coach, who said that my type was ‘witches, bit****, and divas,’” said Pecce by telephone last week from her current home in Chicago.

“It started out as a typing scenario, but it soon became a stepping-off point for me to create a cabaret act that includes songs made famous by everyone from Elaine Stritch and Barbra Streisand to Mariah Carey and Beyoncé.

“In 2017, I was in a singing competition that involved several musical genres. I didn’t end up finishing first, but I took that experience as further impetus to work on this show,” explains Pecce, who brings “Witches, Bit****, and Divas!” back to Oberon in Cambridge on September 8.

Singing music from multiple genres is second nature to the 2007 Hingham High School graduate, who earned a bachelor's degree in Musical Education from New York’s Hofstra University in 2011, and a master’s in Opera Performance from the Boston Conservatory in 2013.

Pecce says an “incredibly challenging and rewarding” master class she took with cabaret legend Marilyn Maye now informs every aspect of her own burgeoning cabaret career.

“Marilyn Maye taught me the difference in going from musical theater to cabaret, and the adjustment you have to make to your focus. In musical theater, it’s all about the show, while in cabaret you sing to the audience, not for them, in real time.

“As a performer, going out as yourself requires a mindful shift. Cabaret audiences really want to know you,” says Pecce. “Lately, I’ve been working with stand-up comics to develop patter to add to my act.”

A former member of the Boston Opera Collaborative, Pecce played Anne in Heggie’s “To Hell and Back” and Armida in “Rinaldo” for the company. Pecce was also a featured performer in the U.S. premiere of Lee Mingwei's “Sonic Blossom,” a performance art piece presented at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

In local musical theater, she played Dottie in Fiddlehead Theatre Company’s 2016 production of “Show Boat” at Boston’s Shubert Theatre, and, at the Company Theatre in Norwell, the title role in a 2015 production of “Mary Poppins” and Vivienne in “Legally Blonde: The Musical” in 2016.

Pecce will be back in Norwell on September 21 as one of the featured performers in the Company Theatre’s “40th Anniversary Revue,” being presented at 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. as a benefit for the theater’s Legacy Fund.

And on November 9 and 10, she will perform in “Earth to Kenzie,” a new opera by Frances Pollock and Jessica Murphy Moo at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. While she awaits those dates, Pecce said she is happy to be doing her own thing.

“One of the things that’s difficult about this industry is that so much of your success is determined by someone else. The biggest blessing this show has given me is the permission to perform on my own terms and the freedom to create my own opportunities.

“When I first did it in January 2018 – at Davenport’s Piano Bar Cabaret in Chicago – I thought it would be a one-time thing. Then people whose opinions I value said, ‘You have to keep doing this show,’” the performer recalls.

And so she has – at Oberon, Feinstein’s/54 Below and the Green Room 42 in New York City, Club Café in Boston, the Den Theatre in Chicago, and elsewhere.

For her return to Oberon, the American Repertory Theater’s second stage and club venue on the fringe of Harvard Square, Pecce – whose parents, Debbie and Chris Pecce, and younger sister Danielle Pecce continue to live in Hingham – will be accompanied by Steve Bass and his band.

“We’ll be paying musical homage to a whole host of great singers and their songs. Steve has done a wonderful new arrangement of Beyoncé’s ‘Love on Top,’ and we’ll also be debuting a new piece from Bizet’s ‘Carmen.’

“There will also be a bit of Broadway music,” says Pecce, “and some jazz standards including Billy Strayhorn’s ‘Lush Life,’ which I really love.”

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